Anti-theistic Theories: Being the Baird Lecture for 1877

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Page D . PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH ; AUTHOR
OF ' THEISM , ' ' THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN EUROPE , ETC . WILLIAM
BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXIX To The ...

Page 68 They might at least have anticipated Professor Clifford , and told us that “ a
moving molecule of inorganic matter possesses a small piece of mind - stuff . ”
Having conformed their atoms to the needs of their system 68 Anti - Theistic
Theorics .

Page 123 What that bearing is I shall leave it to Professor Huxley to state . Treating of the “
Physical Basis of Life , ” he writes : “ Plants are the accumulators of the power
which animals distribute and dispense . But it will be observed that the existence
of ...

Page 126 It is unnecessary to dwell longer on an argument which has been so often
presented to the English public in the brilliant expositions of Professor Tyndall .
The significance of the doctrine of evolution must also not be overlooked in the
present ...

Page 130 The argument for materialism may now , perhaps , be fitly concluded in the words
of Professor Huxley : “ I take it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to
prove that anything whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary ...

Popular passages

Page 160 - That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to. another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has iu philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.

Page 172 - ... the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought, and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously ; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process...

Page 76 - It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For, while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further, but, when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.